- Joined
- Jun 24, 2011
- Messages
- 4
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- Location
- Scotland
- Your Mac's Specs
- MacBook 5.1
Hi All
2 months ago I bought a second hand Aluminium Macbook (the one that looks like a pro without "pro" after the MacBook)
It's the 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running SL 10.6.7. I have installed 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Kingston Ram and it is registered and working fine in the "About This Mac" .
I've never had a mac before but I always took them to be really slick and smooth. I've been using various things on the mac, iTunes, Spotify, MSN Messenger, iPhoto etc etc as well as the National Geographic Complete collection (Flash AIR based) and Blurb's Booksmart software.
Now in general use, folder browsing etc the computer seems to respond ok, sometimes it has a quick think but nothing too much.
When I get in to the programs however things really start stalling. I quite often get a rainbow wheel, the fan seems to power up for a moment and then it lurches back in to life. Once it does this it runs ok, until I try to do something else and it sometimes does it successfully, sometimes another rainbow wheel.
Sketchup is a constant rainbow wheel when I go to orbit around a model (not even complicated) and it does a wee lag before catching up.
Search bar/general box text is often lagging behind and then surges in magically.
As I type this there's no text lag at all though.
I don't know what is causing this but it's really frustrating. When using the National Geographic app and trying to flick through the pages, it always does a rainbow wheel, or sometimes it'll just sit and do nothing and you end up hitting the arrow key again and missing the next page by a few.
The fact that my MacBook wasn't designed to take 8GB Ram does make me wonder if it's that. But the additional fact that it's registered no problem, I have no page in/out issues, makes me think that maybe I have dodgy RAM. I really don't know.
I've tried a Disk Utitlity check thing and also resetting the PRAM with Option/CMD R P (or whatever the combo is).
I installed a fresh copy of SL on it when I bought it, along with a new 500GB HDD (Caviar Blue) and the RAM.
Sorry for the long post, but I want to cover all bases in a hope to avoid any duplicate suggestions. Can anyone offer any light on this. Should macs be laggy like this or should they be really slick and smooth like I've thought? If this could run photoshop with the 8GB RAM it would be fantastic, but if it's lagging with iPhoto then photoshop is surely a no-no?
Should I revert back to 4GB and it will be slick and fast, responding quickly to anything I ask of it i.e. flicking through pages in the NG app, or zooming in on a photo in iPhoto? Or is it something bigger that I need to consider?
Hope to hear something back soon!
Cheers
YY
2 months ago I bought a second hand Aluminium Macbook (the one that looks like a pro without "pro" after the MacBook)
It's the 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running SL 10.6.7. I have installed 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 Kingston Ram and it is registered and working fine in the "About This Mac" .
I've never had a mac before but I always took them to be really slick and smooth. I've been using various things on the mac, iTunes, Spotify, MSN Messenger, iPhoto etc etc as well as the National Geographic Complete collection (Flash AIR based) and Blurb's Booksmart software.
Now in general use, folder browsing etc the computer seems to respond ok, sometimes it has a quick think but nothing too much.
When I get in to the programs however things really start stalling. I quite often get a rainbow wheel, the fan seems to power up for a moment and then it lurches back in to life. Once it does this it runs ok, until I try to do something else and it sometimes does it successfully, sometimes another rainbow wheel.
Sketchup is a constant rainbow wheel when I go to orbit around a model (not even complicated) and it does a wee lag before catching up.
Search bar/general box text is often lagging behind and then surges in magically.
As I type this there's no text lag at all though.
I don't know what is causing this but it's really frustrating. When using the National Geographic app and trying to flick through the pages, it always does a rainbow wheel, or sometimes it'll just sit and do nothing and you end up hitting the arrow key again and missing the next page by a few.
The fact that my MacBook wasn't designed to take 8GB Ram does make me wonder if it's that. But the additional fact that it's registered no problem, I have no page in/out issues, makes me think that maybe I have dodgy RAM. I really don't know.
I've tried a Disk Utitlity check thing and also resetting the PRAM with Option/CMD R P (or whatever the combo is).
I installed a fresh copy of SL on it when I bought it, along with a new 500GB HDD (Caviar Blue) and the RAM.
Sorry for the long post, but I want to cover all bases in a hope to avoid any duplicate suggestions. Can anyone offer any light on this. Should macs be laggy like this or should they be really slick and smooth like I've thought? If this could run photoshop with the 8GB RAM it would be fantastic, but if it's lagging with iPhoto then photoshop is surely a no-no?
Should I revert back to 4GB and it will be slick and fast, responding quickly to anything I ask of it i.e. flicking through pages in the NG app, or zooming in on a photo in iPhoto? Or is it something bigger that I need to consider?
Hope to hear something back soon!
Cheers
YY